Dickens's England (42 page)

Merrily capered the players all;

North, was the garden where Nicholson slept,

South, was the sweep of a battered wall.

Near me a Mussulman, civil and mild,

Watched as the shuttlecocks rose and fell;

And he said, as he counted his beads and smiled,

‘God smite their souls to the depths of hell.'

Alfred Lyall, ‘Studies at Delhi, 1876',
Verses Written in India
(1889)

THE FAR EAST

I: CHINESE FASHIONS

Flora Finching:
‘Oh do tell me something about the Chinese ladies whether their eyes are really so long and narrow always putting me in mind of mother-of-pearl fish [tokens] at cards and do they really wear tails down their back and plaited too or is it only the men, and when they pull their hair so very tight off their foreheads don't they hurt themselves, and why do they stick little bells all over their bridges and temples and hats and things or don't they really do it?'

Charles Dickens,
Little Dorrit
(1857)

II: JAPANESE WAYS

In those long-ago days, Yokohama [where British forces were training the Japanese navy] had not attained its present respectable civilisation; top hats were sought after as the daintiest of fashionable attainments; every battered specimen on board fetched its weight in gold; open baths for mixed bathing were to be met with in the public thoroughfares; British regimental guards disarmed fanatics before allowing them to enter the town; inlaid bronzes, miniature trees and genuine curios were procurable; massive Birmingham products had not become an industry wherewith to catch the unwary; public crucifixion by transfixing with bamboo stakes (such as I witnessed in the case of the murder of a British officer) were still in full blast, and the sweetest little girls were to be bought for domestic service, and sent to be dealt with by the nearest magistrate on the breath of a suspicion of breach of fidelity. To go a mile beyond the Treaty Port was to court certain death, whilst to remain peacefully within the town and visit the various day and night entertainments was as delightful an existence as the most blasé reprobate could desire.

One of the Old Brigade (D. Shaw),
London in the Sixties
(1908)

‘AN EMIGRANT AFLOAT'

I knew very little of the sea when I determined to emigrate. . . . I shall describe the voyage, in order that those who follow me may know precisely what it is that they have to encounter . . .

It was late in the afternoon of a bright May day when the Seagull, 480 tons register, and bound for Quebec, spread her wings to the wind, after having been towed out of the harbour of Greenock. . . .

I remained on deck long enough to perceive the approach of a marked change in the weather. . . . As we tacked to and fro to gain the open sea, the vessel laboured heavily, and I soon felt sufficiently squeamish to descend and seek refuge in my berth. Here a scene awaited me for which I was but little prepared. With very few exceptions, all below were far advanced in sea-sickness. Some were groaning in their berths; others were lying upon the floor, in a semi-torpid state; and others, again, were retching incessantly. . . . I could not sleep, for as the gale increased, so did the noises within and without. I could hear the heavy wind whistling mournfully through the damp, tight-drawn cordage, and the waves breaking in successive showers on the deck overhead. It made my flesh creep, too, to hear the water trickling by my very ear, as it rushed along outside the two-inch plank which (pleasing thought) was all that separated me from destruction. As the storm gained upon us, the ship laboured more and more heavily, until, at length, with each lurch which she made, everything movable in the steerage rolled about from side to side on the floor. Pots and pans, trunks, boxes and pieces of crockery kept up a most noisy dance for the entire night, their respective owners being so ill as to be utterly indifferent to the fate of their property. . . . and, that nothing might be wanting to heighten the horrors of the scene, we were all this time in perfect darkness, every light on board having been extinguished for hours. . . .

We were a very mixed company in the steerage. Some had been farmers, and were going out to try their hands at agriculture in the wilds of Canada. Others had been servants, predial [farm] or domestic, and were on their way in search of better fortunes in the New World, although they had not yet made up their minds as to the precise manner in which they were to woo the fickle dame. We had a brace of wives on board who were proceeding to join their husbands in Canada, who had prudently preceded their families, and prepared for their advent by constructing a home for them in the woods. There was an old man with a slender capital, who was emigrating at an advanced period of life, that he might make a better provision for his grandson, a lusty youth of about seventeen . . . also amongst us a large family from Edinburgh, of that class of people who have ‘seen better days', who were hurrying across the Atlantic in the hope of at least catching a glimpse of them again. . . . We had a clergyman, too, of the poorer class, in worldly circumstances, who had been accredited as a missionary to the Canadian wilds. I must not overlook four or five infants, the precise ownership of which I never thoroughly traced, they were so tumbled about from one to another; and which generally of nights favoured us with prolonged choruses of the most enlivening description. . . .

Perhaps the greatest privation to which the poor steerage passenger is subjected, is in connection with the water which he uses for drinking and in some of his cooking processes. As the voyage may be protracted beyond reasonable calculation, an extra supply of fresh water is or should be laid in to meet such an emergency. To preserve this extra stock from becoming impure, different devices are resorted to – such as impregnating it with lime, large quantities of which are thrown into each cask. Were this the case only with the extra stock, the comfort of the passenger might, for a time at least, be unimpaired in this respect; but the misfortune is, that all the water for steerage consumption, immediate and contingent, is treated in the same way; so that the emigrant is scarcely out of harbour when he finds the water of which he makes use not only extremely unpalatable to drink, but in such a state as to spoil every decoction into which it enters. . . .

On the fifth day out, after gaining the open sea, we were overtaken by a tremendous gale, which did us considerable damage. I was standing near the forecastle, when a heavy block dropped from aloft with terrific force at my feet. I had scarcely recovered from my fright, when crash after crash overhead, making me run under the jolly boat in terror. For a moment afterwards all was still, and then arose a tremendous uproar on board, officers giving all sorts of directions at once, and sailors running about, and jumping over each other to obey them. When I ventured to peep out from my place of safety, a sad spectacle of wreck and ruin presented itself to me. On our lee, masts, ropes, spars and sails were floating alongside on the uneasy waters. Our fore topmast had given way, and in falling overboard, had dragged the main topgallant mast and the greater part of our bowsprit with it. Sails and rigging went of course with the wreck, which was provoking, as the wind was a-beam and so far favourable. We soon hauled the wreck on board, however, and in the course of two or three days, with the aid of the carpenter, the dismantled ship was re-rigged in a very creditable manner. . . .

The first land we made was Cape Breton, an island off the northern extremity of Novia Scotia, and between which and Newfoundland is the entrance to the Gulf of St Lawrence. . . . The Gulf of St Lawrence has not been inaptly designated, the ‘vilest of seas'. It was our lot to have ample experience of its capricious humours. When almost at the mouth of the river, which expands into a magnificent estuary of from seventy to ninety miles in width, we were becalmed for two whole days. Between us and the rocky shore on our left, to which we were very close, lay a vessel from Belfast, crowded with emigrants. There was music and dancing on board; and so near were we to each other that we too sometimes danced to the sound of her solitary violin. On the evening of the second day, we were suddenly overtaken by a furious squall, which, descending the river, came upon us so unprepared that much of our canvas was cut to pieces ere it could be taken in. In about half an hour all was comparatively tranquil again, but on looking for our comrade, not a vestige of her was to be seen. It was not for three weeks afterwards, when we heard of her total loss with upwards of three hundred and fifty souls on board, that our dreadful suspicions respecting her were confirmed. . . .

The quarantine ground of Canada is Gros Isle, between which and Quebec stretches the long Island of Orleans. We had scarcely dropped anchor when we were boarded by an officer of the Board of Health. Whilst ascending the river, the ship had been thoroughly cleaned, and the berths in the steerage whitewashed. . . . We landed immediately in boats, and, after having been for about six weeks at sea, it was with inexpressible joy that I sprang ashore, for the first time, in the New World.

I have since learned that, in all respects, ours was an average journey across the wide waste.

Alexander Mackay,
Household Words
(August 1850)

VAN DIEMAN'S LAND

(I)

Come all you gallant poachers, that ramble void of care,

That walk out on moonlight night with your dog, gun and snare,

The lofty hare and pheasant you have at your command,

Not thinking of your last career upon Van Dieman's Land.

Poor Tom Brown, from Nottingham, Jack Williams, and Poor Joe,

We are three daring poachers, the country do well know.

At night we were trepanned by the keepers hid in sand,

Who for fourteen years transported us into Van Dieman's Land.

The first day that we landed upon that fatal shore,

The planters they came round us full twenty score or more,

They ranked us up like horses, and sold us out of hand,

Then yoked us unto ploughs, boys, to plough Van Dieman's Land.

Our cottages that we live in were built of clod and clay,

And rotten straw for bedding, and we dare not say nay.

Our cots were fenced with fire, we slumber when we can,

To drive away wolves and tigers upon Van Dieman's Land. . . .

God bless our wives and families, likewise the happy shore,

That isle of great contentment which we shall see no more.

As for our wretched females, see them we seldom can,

There's twenty to one woman upon Van Dieman's Land. . . .

So all young gallant poachers, give ear unto my song,

It is a bit of good advice, although it is not long:

Throw by your dogs and snare, for to you I speak plain,

For if you knew our hardships, you'd never poach again.

Anon., folk song, early Victorian

(II)

Down to the year 1856, when responsible government began, the history of Van Dieman's Land is the history of a convict settlement. How to manage conflicts, how to get work out of them with the least possible chance of escape, how to punish them, and how not to punish them, how to make them understand that they were simply beasts of burden reduced to that degree by their own vileness, and how to make them understand at the same time that if under the most difficult circumstances for the exercise of virtue they would cease to be vicious, they might cease also to be beasts of burden – these were the tasks which were imposed, not only upon the governors and their satellites, not only on all officers military and civil, not only on the army of gaolers, warders and suchlike, which was necessary, but also on every free settler, and on every free man on the island. . . .

A double set of horrors is told of the convict establishment of Van Dieman's Land – of horrors arising from the cruelty of the tyrant gaolers to their prison slaves, and of horrors created by these slaves when they escaped and became bushrangers. It must be borne in mind that almost every squatter was a gaoler, and that almost every servant was a slave. But no tidings that are told throughout the world exaggerate themselves with so much ease as the tidings of horrors. . . . The ball grows as it is rolled. . . .

Of course the escapes were numerous, and of course the punishments were severe. And it was not only that the men would escape, but also that . . . they would not earn their rations by work. . . . The practice became very simple at last. If the man would not work, or worked amiss, or was held to have sinned in any way against his master's discipline, he was sent to the magistrate to be flogged. He himself would be the bearer of some short note. ‘Dear Sir, – Please give the bearer three dozen, and return him.' The man as a rule would take the note – and the three dozen, and would return. A bold spirit would perhaps run away. Then he would be tracked and dogged and starved, till he either came back or was brought back – and the last state of that man would be worse than the first. . . .

Not a few of these forlorn ones did escape and make their way into the wilderness, living in holes and amidst rocks and sometimes with habitations built for themselves in the deep recesses of the forests. The names of some of these still live in the memory of old Tasmanians, and some few still live themselves as respectable members of society. . . .

Though one hears much of flogging in Van Dieman's Land, one hears still more of the excellence of the service rendered by convicts. . . . Again, on the other hand, the inquirer is constantly startled by the respectability of career and eminent success of many a pardoned convict. Men who came out nominally for life were free and earning large incomes within comparatively few years. . . .

In 1853 Van Dieman's Land ceased to receive convicts, and in 1856, following the example of her elder and younger sisters on the Australian continent, she went to work with a representative government of her own.